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ORATION 


ON THE 


OF THE 

4 


BIRTH OP THOMAS JEFFERSON, 

//7 

DELIVERED AT THE . .. 

^li 


COUNTY COURT HOUSE, PHILADELPHIA, 


April IStb, 1843 , 



GEORGE M. DALLAS. 


PUBLISHED BY REQUEST OF 


PRINTED BY MIFFLIN & PARRY, 

At the Office of the Pennsylvanian, No. 99 south Second street. 
1843. 




ORATION 


Nothing would seem now to be more universally conceded, than that the 
popular principles on which the laws and institutions of America have for up¬ 
wards of fitty years been improved and administered, owe their dissemination, 
success and stability, more at least than to any other man, to Thomas Jefferson, 
of Virginia. That he laid their foundations broadly and strongly : that he main¬ 
tained them, in their early progress, with steady and uncompromising zeal: 
that he brought to their support the invincible firmness of sincere and absolute 
conviction, the forces of a masterly mind, and the accomplishments of an active 
and varied experience : and that he practically illustrated their fitness to pro¬ 
duce a greater amount of human happiness, more prosperity, more peace, 
more power, more wealth and more honor than were ever before attained within 
a given period of time, by human society, are facts which the solemn records 
of History no longer permit to be contested. His disciples and followers then^ 
amid the signal triumphs of his doctrines which characterize the hundredth an¬ 
niversary of his birth, may. appropriately and gratefully celebrate him as the > 
apostle of their faith, and the founder of Democracy on their continent. I pro¬ 
pose, fellow-citizens, in discharge of the duties to winch I have been invited, to 
invigorate your just devotion to the principles and inculcations of this great 
man, by rapidly refreshing your recollections of the prominent traits of his 
public service and of his political system. 

He was born at Shadwell in the county of Albemarle, and at fourteen years 
of age, was left, by the death of his father, in possession of a large and valuable 
estate. Having passed through a course of Collegiate studies at William and 
Mary, and of professional studies under an able and illustrious teacher, George 
Wythe, he became a member of the bar in 1767. While yet engaged in pre¬ 
paring himself for his admission, he listened with wrapt attention to the im¬ 
passioned and matchless eloquence of Patrick Henry, “ who spoke as Homer 
wrote” on the Resolutions in the House of Burgesses denouncing the British 
Stamp Act; and thenceforward his mind teemed with the vast, bold, generous, 
and patriotic conceptions and purposes destined speedily to be developed in the 
causes alike of human nature and of his country. At the age of twenty-six Jef¬ 
ferson entered, as an elected member, the Legislature of his native province, 
and here, first, and long before the justly celebrated statute which adorns the 
code of our Pennsylvania, he proposed, though unsuccessfully, the emancipation 
of slaves:—making, on the very threshold of his public life, a step, with which 
all his subsequent achievements beautifully and nobly harmonized. At this 
epoch the tones of the approaching Revolution were heard like the sounds of a. 
rising storm, and the gallant spirits formed to breast its fury and direct its con¬ 
summation were calmly combining their strength, moral, intellectual and phys¬ 
ical. Jefferson, in the midst of honorable companions, pressed eagerly forward, 
vindicating with his pen, at the hazard of an impending Bill of Attainder, 


4 


Rights of British America,'' looking far beyond “ the half way house of John 
Dickinson" into the permanent refuge of Independence, and sagaciously fore¬ 
shadowing, by the scheme of Committees of Correspondence, that glorious 
old Continental Congress whose wisdom, virtue, courage, and perseverance, no 
representative body of men has ever surpassed. Soon, at the age of thirty-three, 
he inseparably connected his genius and his fame, as we all know and feel, with 
the 4th of July 1776, and never for an instant suspended his toils, at what he 
termed Hhe labouring oar at home," in a succession of the highest posts of in¬ 
terest and responsibility, until the independence and peace of his new Repub¬ 
lic, the United States, were firmly secured. After devoting five years to forming 
and consolidating our foreign relations with the nations of Europe, and receiv¬ 
ing at the brilliant metropolis of France the affectionate and respectful homage 
of its Scientific Institute, he returned to aid, as the chief counsellor of Wash¬ 
ington, the first movements of the political organization under the Federal Con¬ 
stitution of 1789;—a constitution whose gradual structure he had, at the dis¬ 
tance of three thousand miles, watched with extreme solicitude : whose dan¬ 
gerous uncertainties as originally modelled he beheld with alarm: but whose 
ultimate reconciliation, by amendments, to his own deep conviction of what 
was essential to preserve the freedom of the Confederacy and of the People, 
rendered it the object of his admiration and attachment. 

Jefferson occupied no station which he did not illumine by the splendor of 
his mental exertions—none from'which came not, at one moment or another, 
in some shape or other, his impressive exhortations for the advancement of his 
favorite popular regeneration—none in which he did not leave a monument to 
attest his untiring fidelity to duty. As* Secretary of State, his diplomatic papers 
bore almost the aspect of instructive lectures to those to whom they were ad¬ 
dressed, while in his written disquisitions on national and constitutional law, 
prepared, as guides, for the measures of the cabinet to which he belonged, his 
ever vigilant spirit irresistibly combatted the high-toned theories and aristo¬ 
cratic tendencies of the ablest of all his opponents. When Vice President, 
he formed a compilation of rules, maxims and precedents which, in our innu¬ 
merable spheres of deliberative discussion, has ever been, and will probably 
ever continue, the standard to regulate the forms of proceeding, often, on critical 
emergencies, so vital to the purity, fairness and freedom of legislation. 

From this hurried sketch of what preceded Jefferson’s rise to the Chief Ma¬ 
gistracy, you can only derive a faint impression of the basis on which his fame 
reposes. Certainly one of the lofty intelligences whence our Revolution re¬ 
ceived its earliest impulse—certainly one who impressed upon its action, its 
machinery and its result, the broad and regenerating principles of his own 
mind—certainly one who had exercised a vast and controlling influence in 
preventing the new political organization from assuming a character of 
vague, undefined, unrestricted and absorbing consolidation—he was, as cer- 
^ tainly, at the beginning of the present century, and indeed had been for several 
years before, the acknowledged head of American Democracy. It is not my 
wish to tell you how even his adversaries, during the memorable era termed the 
Reign of Terror, seemed instinctively conscious of his enviable eminence, and 
of his approaching triumph. Nor will I recall their daring expedients to defeat 


5 


an elevation which seemed at once to extinguish the [smouldering embers of 
British and monarchical feeling, and to give to all ardent republicans assurance 
that our liberties were at last secured. As he took the helm of State, a peace¬ 
ful revolution dawned on domestic policy, scarcely less momentous than the 
warlike one which he^^had opened with the Declaration of Independence. The 
people, ay, the very people ot these states, were now to see realized in the 
operations of their government, the sanguine, consoling, though long deferred 
hopes, inspired by a mighty reformer, whose promises and pledges had ever 
been held sacred. 

You will doubtless have perceived that there are two lights m which Thomas ^ 
Jefferson should be regarded in order to be correctly appreciated:—one which 
exhibits him in relation to humanity at large, and another which exhibits him 
in relation to his fellow-countrymen alone. 

As a member of the great human family, he is eminently entitled to be re¬ 
corded as a Practical Philanthropist and Universal Benefactor. No one more 
vigorously, more perseveringly, or more effectually asserted and enforced the 
natural, equal, and unalienable rights and powers of his fellow beings. His 
eye pierced through, as his heart disdained, the trappings of pride, the preten¬ 
sions of birth, the exclusiveness of classes, or the arrogance of inveterate forms. 

To him. Providence, Religion, Philosophy, and Common Sense, spoke, in vin¬ 
dication of the mass of mankind, a language at once uniform and unequivocal, 
and he echoed that language faithfully. He demanded their exemption from 
all government but that of their own choosing, and from all influence but that 
of their own conscience:—he claimed freedom as the inseparable attribute ot 
each:—freedom to act, freedom to speak, freedom to adore! Confronting the sys¬ 
tems and abuses of ages, he became the champion of the present and the future 
against the entailed servitude and miseries of the past. The unchecked dignity 
of earth’s noblest creatures, their emancipation from thraldom of every descrip¬ 
tion, their enjoyment of the blessings of life, of reason, and of liberty; these 
were the aims and inculcations of his justice and benevolence. Hereditary 
sway, or office, or rank, or privilege, he ridiculed as preposterous and condemn¬ 
ed as pernicious. In a word, he stood up for his race, in every land, against 
every modification of tyranny, and in scorn and defiance of every encroachment 
upon what he esteemed the invaluable and unalienable gifts of a beneficent 
Creator. 

Such principles, though founded in unchangeable truth, like those of Chris¬ 
tianity, to which indeed they bear a strong affinity, could expect no toleration 
at the hands of the stern oligarchs, whom centuries of delusion and of crime 
had, on almost every inhabitable spot of the globe, habituated to the indul¬ 
gences of selfishness and power. Although the world was even then too far 
advanced to permit their refutation, it is never too late for the advocates of usur¬ 
pation and wrong to falsify, pervert, ridicule, and clamor down the aims and 
arguments of even-handed justice. The tocsin of alarm was sounded from all 
the sympathizing citadels of Royalty, peerage, knighthood, bigotry and free¬ 
hold, and was prolonged by the chiming little belfries and tapering peaks of 
Vanity and Subserviency. The doctrines of Jefferson were, throughout Eu¬ 
rope, modernized France alone excepted, meanly and unremittingly depicted 
as subversive of social order, repugnant to the execution of law, fatal to the 




6 


y rights of property, and incompatible with morals or religion. The Press, which 
in our days may be likened to the lightning rod that instantly transmits the 
electricity of genius from the loftiest heights to the deepest recesses, was then 
comparatively a sluggish conductor, and, at best, baffled by obstructions or neu¬ 
tralized by corruption. If explainable upon philosophical views, it is never¬ 
theless an apparent anomaly, that men reputed to be in a civilized state, should 
voluntarily shut out the light, reject the earthly salvation offered for their 
acceptance, and perversely cling to the darkness and the doom of vassalage. 
What is true is however irrepressible, and sooner or later, in this century or the 
next, rest assured that our fellow-beings must every where imitate the exam¬ 
ple whose attractiveness it lies with the Republicans of America to preserve 
and improve. 

The political system of Jefferson in relation to his own countrymen is that by 
which we are more nearly and more constantly affected. It is within this 
sphere that his devotion to freedom, his forecasting wisdom, and his conserva¬ 
tive statesmanship, w'ere exemplified in the almost endless details of practical 
government. The party divisions, which rapidly sprung up during the con¬ 
coction and after the adoption of our existing Constitution, may, I think, be 
traced to what, speaking in the general, strongly indicated a design on the part 
ot eminent men to let drop or evade the thoroughly popular doctrines on wfflich 
they had achieved, and on which only they could have achieved. Independence: 
—to get rid, as it were, of friends that had outlived their liking—and to glide 
back, in substance, if not in form, to the British model. Such a design—or 
the bare suspicion of its being harboured, would naturally rouse, at a crisis so 
interesting, the utmost vigilance and activity of Jefferson. He perceived, at 
once, that the work of revolution was in reality unconsummated:—that the 
guarantee against a retrograde movement was yet wanting:—and that unless 
his fellow-citizens, made aware of their danger, could be induced to face their 
domestic opponents with the same promptitude and energy as they had faced 
their foreign ones, the means of safety would depart with the final adjournment 
of the Continental Congress, and might never be regained. The interval was 
perilous. Peace had in a measure promoted a relapse into former habits:—the 
prejudices of early education:—old feelings, always the warmer after a re¬ 
newal of an interrupted intercourse:—the leaven of still but stimulating tory- 
ism:—and the influence of the only literature then circulating:— all combined 
with a keen appetite for the long withheld gains of a commerce with the “Mo- 
ther Country,’’^ to jeopard the only fruits worth ripening or reaping by the sac¬ 
rifices and toils of a Rebellion. 

It would involve too serious a draft upon your time on this occasion,to develope 
the manner in which the disadvantages and embarrassments of their position 
were encountered by the Patriarch of our party, and his affiliated republicans 
in each of the States. It was amidst the ensuing collisions of patriotism and of 
intellect, prolonged through the memorable era of ’98, that the Constitution 
was happily moulded as it now is, and that the creed of Democracy, as contra¬ 
distinguished from Federalism, was matured. How distinctly this creed fol¬ 
lowed out the beneficent maxims and motives of the Declaration of Indepen¬ 
dence, how effectually it foreclosed all backward tendencies or impulses, and 
how truly worthy it is of undiminished regard and implicit conformity, may be 







7 

seen by merely and briefly recurring, without a comment, to some ot its prin¬ 
cipal features; thus — 

1. The essential legal equality ot human beings; 

2. The people, the only source of legitimate power; 

3. The absolute and lasting severance of church from state; 

4. The freedom, sovereignty, and independence of the respective states; 

5. The Union, a coPfederacy or compact: neither a consolidation, nor a cen¬ 
tralization; 

6. The Constitution of the Union; a special written grant of powers limited 
and definite. 

Again— 

1. No hereditary office, nor order, nor title; 

2. No taxation beyond the public wants; 

3. No national debt if possible; 

4. No costly splendor of administration; 

5. No proscription of opinion nor of public discussion; 

6. No unnecessary interference with individual conduct, property, or speech; 

7. The civil paramount to the military power. 

And again— 

1. The representative to obey the instructions ot his constituents; 

2. No favored classes and no monopolies; 

3. Elections free and suffrage universal; 

4. No public moneys expended except by warrant of specific appropriation; 

5. No mysteries in government inaccessible to the public eye; 

6. Public compensation for public services, moderate salaries, and pervading 
economy and accountability. 

The election of Jefierson to the Presidency, by the people of the United States, 
constituted their first authentic and emphatic ratification of the entire Demo¬ 
cratic creed. He was unquestionably both its chief author and representative. 
His administration throughout illustrated and enforced its propositions with 
all their resulting and subsidiary deductions and doctrines; and what was the 
consequence] why, such was the extraordinary impulse given to prosperity and 
progress—such the enlargement of our means and population, our contentment, 
and our confidence, that, in the short period of twelve years, this infant re¬ 
public was firm enough, and strong enough, and rich enough, and bold enough, 
single-handed and successfully, to cope with the mightiest of veteran nations* 
May I ask, fellow-citizens, whether it be presumptuous to say that the won¬ 
derful achievements and refulgent close of the war of 1812—obstructed, re¬ 
sisted, denounced, decried and thwarted as that war was by the antagonists of 
his system, should be gratefully accepted as an attested sanction of Providence 
on his labors and his purposes? and whether there was not something akin to 
revelation, which should awe the incredulous, in the tranquil manner in which 
at the age of 83, he accompanied, as it were, hand in hand, his early compeer, 
later competitor, and final proselyte, to rejoin another, even more glorious than 
either, at the bar of eternity, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of 
Independence, and within the very hour on which he had affixed his immortal 
name to that immortal instrument? 


8 


Thus far, I am disposed, fellow-citizens, to consider the tribute of renown 
accumulated upon the meritorious life of Jefferson, as immeasurably and justly 
exceeding (Washington apart) that of any other man. His triumph as the 
ameliorating reformer of the principles and practices of government was,while 
be yet lived, signal and assured:—it has since widened and -deepened; and it is 
stilUiourly advancing, expanding and strengthening. The shoot that he planted 
at “ The Raleigh Tavern" in 1769, found a genial soil, and has luxuriated, 
amid occasional frosts Imt with constant sunshine, until now its roots Jiave pierc¬ 
ed into and grappled the grhnite mass, and its foliage blossoms and glitters in 
all directions. Every material change of law, and we know how unceasingly 
throughout the twenty-six states such changes occur,—and every modification 
of organic structure and theory, — not unfrequent either — are prompted and 
adapted, more or less, to effectuate his plans, and bear constantly renewing 
homage to the presence and power of his genius. No administration, general 
or local, political or municipal, deems itself safely started without a formal 
profession of the whole or the greater part of his rules ot action, nor has any 
one disregarded his injunctions, without loss of character, entanglement and 
repentance. In fine, the senseless and delusive, though loud and fierce outcries 
which originally denounced him as the Jacobin, the Leveller, or the‘Destruc¬ 
tive, have given place, even on the lips of most eloquent adversaries, to hon¬ 
eyed avowals of Jeffersonian Democracy! 

They who enjoy benefits and blessings achieved by illustrious men, are un¬ 
der a sacred obligation to cherish their fame. This is the adequate and appro¬ 
priate reward of virtuous toil; it is the only one which real magnanimity of 
soul ever contemplates, beyond the charm ot success, as the fruit of patriotic 
exertion. The possession of office, the distributive power of patronage, the bus¬ 
tle and pageantry of public exaltation, or the opportunities of mercenary gain, 
are the aims of a tainted ambition:—no truly great and pure mind ever valued 
them. In this country, according to the stern spirit of our institutions, we can 
repay the labors ot statesmen or the exploits of gallantry in but one way—by 
our remembrance and gratitude. In England, or in France, or in Russia, im¬ 
mense domains and boundless treasure are transferred as enduring testimonials 
ot national regard; but with us, Jefferson, the pioneer, who bade the political 
wilderness blossom as a rose, impoverished by the ceaseless pursuit of our lib¬ 
erties and of a policy which added almost an empire to our territory, was thought 
fortunate in being able to relieve his personal wants by selling to Congress, 
and for half their worth, the very instruments or weapons he had so nobly em¬ 
ployed. For a Wellington, a Soult, or aPaskevitch, millions are lavished; but 
for their American equal—equal in all that constitutes the victorious defender 
of one’s native land—the restoration of a paltry fine of a thousand dollars, ex. 
torted by an angry judge as the penalty for undiscriminating and absorbing 
patriotism, is unattainable. If we must not quarrel with this peculiarity of our 
republicanism—if we ought never to recognize money as a suitable represen¬ 
tative of our veneration and love—let us at least give to these sentiments that 
fostering care and that signal manifestation which can only make them, what 
they were thought to be by their inspirers, an ample substitute for every thing 
else. 


LB N 10 











































